Thank you to all of the artists and collectors. Without you it wouldn’t have happened. Have a great one! #madeleinecruise #kenoregan #belindastreet #peterlankas #jokatsiaris #jendenzin #mandyrobinson #ameliavivash #ondineseabrook #fionabarrett-clark #jakeclark #janefrancesreilly #braddonsnape #sallymcdonald #gavinvitullo #cathbeynon

We are thinking of facilitating black & white photography workshops through Dungog Contemporary Gallery. This is only possible because of the exciting news that someone has set up a fully equipped commercial darkroom with several enlargers and other equipment in the Hunter Valley, selling film, paper & photographic chemicals.

Do you have a 35mm or medium format analogue camera that you would love to use? Would you like to learn how to use it properly, to compose beautiful photographs, to use a light meter and both available and studio light. Imagine developing and printing your own photographs!

This workshop would run in two stages. A photography workshop in the field in Newcastle and our studio. With a processing and black and white printing workshop in the darkroom. If you are interested please contact us through this website as we would need to work out logistics etc. We think that March 2019 would be a good time to begin.

Jane Frances Reilly. “Looking through a window” This beautifully honest body of work examines the practicalities of domestic and rural life. The mundane is transformed through line, colour and texture, creating romance and cognition. Their construction renders their adaptability and the combination of all these elements provides a conduit for connection. Within each work is a record of all our lives, they are the keepers of our stories.

Jo Katsiaris. “Wastelands” Detritus. The discarded is snatched from the jaws of forgotteness. In sight and on our minds, the overwhelming problem of our consumerist Achilles heel. Our capacity to face up to our addition to the new is diminished as the task seems beyond overwhelming. Our memory of mending, fixing and darning, lost to a distant advertising campaign of “built to last”. The ping of built in obsolescence is silenced by the bright, shiny and new. wastelands brings us optimism as we come face to face with the renewed. All that is discarded is not lost.

“Looking through a window” and “Wastelands” open at 10am on Saturday September 29, co-inciding with the Dungog Festival, a weekend of festivities culminating with a terrific gig on Sunday night in the main street featuring Those Jazz Guys and Dog Trumpet. The two shows run until November 18. Additional works by other artists are available for purchase through the stockroom and online.

We have added a picture framing and hanging service to what we offer at Dungog Contemporary.

Having been asked to frame some really interesting watercolours, black and white photographs and paintings, the feedback from Dungog locals has been fantastic. We stock a range of contemporary frames and and mattes. Many of our Artists show work unframed here at the gallery, so it is great that people can now see the works with a variety of framing choices.

All framing is of archival (museum) standard using high quality acid-free materials. We can offer perspex and glass, including the latest non-reflective glass. Having vast experience in art installation we can hang your new works or even curate and hang entire collections. Do drop by the gallery for an obligation free quote.

We have extended this beautiful strong show of works until the 25th June as we have decided to run our shows bi-monthly to give people more of a chance to visit us in the Upper Hunter Valley. There is also have some very exciting news coming for the gallery and a really terrific program to take us through our first birthday and through to the end of the year, stay tuned!

This Saturday April 14.2018 from 3.pm on is opening drinks for Fiona Barrett-Clark. A highly sought after artist from Sydney, Fiona paints the landscape of country NSW. Known for her works which although devoid of human presence show human activity. Executed on a square format in oil on board, the works have a textural quality that reminds one of old colour slides or prints. There are eight works in the show which we have hung in the small front gallery here at Dungog Contemporary.

Deciding to hold smaller monthly shows in the front gallery has enabled us to free up the big gallery and hang the contents of our stock room to enable them to be seen. We have a beautiful selection of paintings, photographs and sculpture, by emerging to mid-career artists from Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne.

Artists held in the stockroom collection include: Madeleine Cruise, Belinda Street, Jo Bevan, Jen Denzin, Stephen Hobbs, Amelia Vivash and Jane Frances Rielly. Works are also available to purchase online here through our website. We welcome all enquiries and are happy to arrange shipping. We can provide artists statements and cv's. We deal directly with artists studios, and do not deal in the secondary art market.

BROOD our second show for 2018 features works from three great Newcastle artists. Two sculptors and a painter who share studio's at The Creator Incubator, a happening art-space in North Hamilton, Newcastle.

"Breathe" by Gavin Vitullo and overall winner of the 2017 Sculpture in the Vineyards is a poignant environmental sculpture, a solitary Fig grows out of an oxygen cylinder, offering a stark contemplation for the future of all species in a malnourished landscape. Landscape artist Sally Mcdonald offers a revelation of the colour, texture and movement of the Australian light. Repetitious blurring and blending of layers using mixed media to render terrestrial perspectives of lineal geological seams and horizon lines then overlaid with a topographical view. Her works are meditative and soothing to be with. "Axial shift & pop" by Braddon Snape is an action sculpture, a dangerous and exciting new method devised by Snape, welding and inflating steel which is then powder-coated. Braddon's work is collected both in Australia and overseas, Snape has made several public commissions.

One of the services that we can offer here at the gallery is the conservation of photographs. Here a client has brought a framed photograph in to have its matte cleaned, flattened out and to be put back into the frame with a new backing board. I am also going to clean the mahogany frame with antique furniture reviver and give it a coat of beeswax. I do not stick the photograph down as we frame archivally using acid-free products at all times to ensure that any work we carry out is of a museum standard. When finished we will fit new D-Rings and wire, the work will look as good as the day it left the framers.

We can also restore old photographs. Making high-resolution copy photographs using studio flash which we then Photoshop to remove blemishes and imperfections. They can then be re-printed to custom sizes. It is also possible for us to have your photographs printed onto other media, for example, canvas or banners, fabric for art installations and promotions. Recently we made a portrait of a farmhouse for a client whilst the jacaranda trees were in full bloom, removing unsightly things such as powerlines and satellite dishes, more on that in another blog-post.

Dungog Contemporary invite you to join us in the acknowledgement of the Traditional Owners of this Country the gallery exists on. We pay our respects to the Gringai People of the Worimi and Wonnarua Nations, their Elders past, present and emerging.